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Freshservice for MSP TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Switching process
- Review license and permission changes
- Review the plan change
- Plan a change window
- Review the new IT workspace
- Review ticket routing and workspace visibility
- Review Servicebot behavior
- Review global email behavior
- Review the Marketplace app behavior
You can switch your Freshservice for Business Teams Pro subscription to a Freshservice ITSM plan. This change adds an IT workspace to your account and changes how licenses, permissions, ticket routing, and other account-wide settings work.
As long as you’re onboarding business teams in your organization, you can continue adding them to the Freshservice for Business Teams Pro plan. However, if you want to onboard your IT team and use ITSM-specific features, you need a Freshservice ITSM plan. In this case, we recommend switching to Freshservice Pro or Enterprise, which allows IT and business teams to work together in the same account.
Important: The plan change is permanent. After you switch to a Freshservice ITSM plan, you cannot switch back to Freshservice for Business Teams Pro. While the change has minimal operational impact, you must maintain at least one IT license, and the IT workspace created during the switch cannot be deleted.
This article explains the changes you should review before and after switching your plan.
Switching process
You can initiate the plan change from Plans and Billing in your account. You can also contact your account manager or Freshservice Support at support@freshservice.com.
Review license and permission changes
When you switch to the Freshservice Pro or Enterprise plan, you can purchase a combination of Freshservice licenses and the Business Agent add-on, or use Freshservice licenses for all agents. Use the following guidelines to determine which license is appropriate for each agent:
Freshservice licenses are required for agents who work in IT workspaces or need access to account-wide/global settings.
If your account currently has a single workspace, switching to a Freshservice plan will convert it into a multi-WS account and add a layer called ‘Global Settings’. To administer global settings, you typically need an IT license. You can sign up for a Freshservice trial account to review the settings available in a multi-workspace account. However, within global settings too, some capabilities are today accessible to business agents. So if you have view access to agents/requesters/requester groups/departments or you have configuration access for Journeys, the business agent license will continue to allow you to do that. For anything else in global settings, you need the IT license.
If your account currently has multiple workspaces and you have been given any permission at an account-wide level, that permission cannot be
Business Agent licenses are intended for agents who work in business workspaces. Agents with permissions in business workspaces can continue performing their work with these licenses. However, Business Agent licenses don’t provide access to certain account-wide capabilities, such as managing agent availability.
Determine the required licenses
Use the following guidelines to determine the number of licenses you need:
IT licenses: Purchase an IT license for:
Each member of the IT team you plan to add.
Existing agents who need to retain account-wide permissions, if your account is currently a multi-workspace account.
Users who have the Play God permission in a single-workspace account.
Business Agent add-on: Purchase the Business Agent add-on for:
Existing agents who need to work on tickets and other data in business workspaces, such as HR or Facilities, but not in the IT workspace.
Agents who administer business workspaces. These agents need an IT license only if they also require account-wide administrative access, such as access to global settings.
Review agent permissions and seats
Review your agents and their administrative permissions before selecting your licenses.
If an account-wide administrator does not need to retain those permissions, remove the permissions to reduce the number of IT licenses required.
If you’re reducing the number of seats, review the agents who need continued access and remove excess agents or convert them to occasional agents before the plan change.
Review the plan change
You can initiate the plan change from Plans and Billing in your account. You can also contact your account manager or Freshservice Support at support@freshservice.com.
The license requirements are validated when the subscription change is executed. Review the required IT and Business Agent licenses before the plan change takes effect to ensure that your users can continue accessing the product as expected.
If the system finds more full-time agents than the number of licenses purchased when the billing change is executed, you will be billed separately for the additional licenses. The same applies if the number of IT licenses purchased is lower than the minimum number of IT licenses required.
Plan a change window
The plan change adds a new workspace and can add global settings if you’re moving from a single-workspace setup to a multi-workspace setup. We recommend planning a change window so that you can review the changes and update your configuration as needed.
Review the new IT workspace
When you switch to an ITSM plan, Freshservice automatically creates an IT workspace and sets it as the primary workspace because ITSM plans require an IT workspace to be primary. The workspace is created using the IT template.
The new workspace has the following behavior:
Seeded configurations are created in a draft or disabled state. For example, service items remain in draft and automations remain disabled. This ensures that they aren’t visible or active for users.
Nothing from the new IT workspace is published or made visible in the support portal. Only users with the account admin role can submit tickets to the IT workspace so that they can test ticket creation.
The IT workspace becomes the primary workspace for the account.
The IT workspace cannot be deleted or replaced as the primary workspace by a business workspace.
Only Play God admins are explicitly added to the new IT workspace with the Workspace Admin and IT Supervisor roles.
Review ticket routing and workspace visibility
In a multi-workspace account, if the Workspace field is hidden from requesters on the ticket form, tickets are normally routed to the primary workspace.
To prevent unexpected changes to ticket routing, Freshservice adds certain business rules when you change your plan. The behavior depends on whether the Workspace field is displayed to requesters.
Manage the Workspace field when it is displayed to requesters
When the Workspace field is available to requesters on the ticket form, business rules hide the new IT workspace from requesters and agents who aren’t account-wide administrators. The IT workspace is hidden from both the Create and Move forms. This prevents users from unintentionally creating or moving tickets to the new IT workspace before it is configured.
You can delete this business rule after the IT workspace is ready.
Manage the Workspace field when it is hidden from requesters
When the Workspace field isn’t displayed to requesters, Freshservice enables the field for requesters and applies business rules to preserve the existing requester experience.
The system applies the following safeguards:
The requester portal loads the form from the workspace that was previously the primary workspace.
The IT workspace is hidden from the Move form for agents who aren’t account-wide administrators.
These business rules are temporary safeguards. After you configure the new IT workspace and review your routing requirements, you can delete the business rules.
Review Servicebot behavior
If you use Servicebot in Slack or Microsoft Teams, requesters can fill out forms directly in Slack or Microsoft Teams. However, business rules don’t apply to forms completed through these integrations.
To prevent requesters from accessing the IT workspace through these forms, Freshservice enables a setting that redirects requesters to the support portal, where the business rules can be applied to the ticket form.
You can disable this setting after the IT workspace is ready.
Review global email behavior
The primary workspace determines the email address used for global emails. After the plan change, the new IT workspace becomes the primary workspace. As a result, global emails, including activation emails and other emails configured through global settings, are sent from the primary email configured in the IT workspace.
Review the primary email configured in the IT workspace and update it if required before the new configuration is used broadly. You cannot use the email address from your current primary workspace for this purpose.
Review the Marketplace app behavior
Changing the primary workspace can affect Marketplace apps that operate only in the account’s primary workspace, regardless of how many workspaces you have added.
If a Marketplace app creates entities in, or pulls or pushes data from, the primary workspace, the app may operate against the new IT workspace after the plan change.
If you’re unsure whether a specific app is affected, contact Freshservice Support to verify its behavior.